The number of people working from home has more than doubled over the past decade, and TechRepublic is launching a new initiative to help remote workers and the IT departments that support them to become more efficient, more productive, and more secure. Of course, this also applies to all the startups and small businesses that are run out of homes as well.

The initiative is called the "TechRepublic Smart Home Office," and it will be located inside of the CNET Urban Smart Home.

Our colleagues at CNET use the Urban Smart Home in downtown Louisville, KY to test out the latest products that can make your home more efficient, more connected, and a better place to live. And, only one floor below is the Louie Lab, the headquarters for the City of Louisville's smart city team. That gives us a special opportunity to connect the impact that smart cities can have on the smart home.

And now, we're adding another dimension: the home office. In a recent survey, 74% of workers said they'd be willing quit their job to work for a company that allowed them to work from home. As the number of people who work out of their home grows, it's important to make your home work space as productive as possible. So we're going to look at the technologies and products that can make your home office smarter than ever.

And what better way to do this than to create our own living laboratory.

Using this experimental workspace, we'll help you pick the right furniture, organize your office, and buy and install all the right tech. We'll also share step-by-step how-tos and time-saving tips to take the headache out of setting up the perfect home office.

Your home work space isn't just a place where you work, it's an integral part of where you live, and because TechRepublic and CNET are CBS Interactive websites, we can show you how to connect your home office to the rest of the smart tech in your home. This is also part of a larger focus on the "smart office" that TechRepublic is doing with ZDNet. Don't miss our joint special feature How to Optimize the Smart Office (the PDF download is on TechRepublic).

Stay tuned to techrepublic.com for all the latest updates on TechRepublic's Smart Home Office.

Image: TechRepublic

Don't miss the latest developments in tech—subscribe to our free Top Story of the Day newsletter.